The Tropical Fruit Forum

I was surprised at the substantial leaf drop in my yard from the cold nights last week. The Guava, Caimito, Soursop were hit the worst and I'm hoping they do not take downturn later this month.

Has anyone else had the same issues?

Yup, it was really good too. The outside was a pale yellow and green and about the size of an 8 ball, it was very aromatic, white flesh soft not firm or mushy, mildly sweet and a bit tart, not too many seeds and I ate the skin and all!

The problem is not one of my guava trees are labeled as a white variety. This one fell off of the tree with the nylon bag and I have no idea which tree was mis-labeled.

I got two trees labeled as Ruby Supreme (RS) at Home Depot or Lowes but I do have an unlabeled variety that I saved from the compost bin as it was dehydrated and near death and the manager said they only received RS this year and claimed that it MUST be a RS! The kicker is that the unlabeled tree has not had fruit on it yet and the other RS in in my front yard many feet from where I found the fruit on the deck.

So which was the culprit? The Barbie pink (BP)? the RS? or the Scarlet (S)? Unknown because all those with labeled varieties had fruit on them and I did not keep a count.

This presents two problems.

1. I liked the white Guava and have no idea what it actually is so I cannot get another one if I wanted it.
2. If it was the BP, or S I do not know which to replace! I'm hoping the other RS are correctly labeled!

Caveat emptor? :-)

Oh well one thing for sure, after getting a few that were labeled as "Mexican cream" years ago that were terrible tasting I'm now having to admit that a white guava can be edible! :-)











 

I've had a love hate relationship with Guava over the last 16 years or so and about 10 years ago I gave up... defeated by white fly, scale, mealy bugs and a general inability to keep Guava trees healthy. The exceptions were Strawberry and Lemon guava which have been surprisingly trouble free. Unfortunately a neighbor has a tasteless poorly kept unnamed guava variety which has suffered neglect over the years and it seems as if his tree's issues had contributed to my problems.
 
Anyway, a while back I decided to populate my patio with potted guava trees in order to maintain a close watch on, keep them pruned, watered and fertilized and at the first sign of anything unusual under or on a leaf I removed it. 

Luckily the general lack of white fly, scale and mealy bugs locally and my bagging fruit early have contributed to the health of the fruit and trees and today I enjoyed the first of the fruits of my efforts.

The fruit was still green at picking at ~ 2-1/2" across and after a few days indoors to ripen and turn yellow the sweet aroma wafting through the house told me when to juice it. All I can day is wow! My love of Guava is as renewed as my efforts to have a continuing source of fruit!

I know not everyone appreciates the Guava or many other fruits for that matter, but I wonder if it's because they haven't tried a selected cultivar with proven traits?

Anyway, now I wait for the Scarlet, Barbie Pink and Variegated Guava fruits to mature.
 

I have nine guava trees of which eight are in nearly identical sized pots, all get the same water and fertilizer regimen and all but the in ground tree are in the same location on my rear patio.

Most of them are flowering and all are healthy in appearance except one, the variegated guava. It has leaf curl (convex or curling downward) and there's no sign of any pest infestation and it's growing robustly and has even set a half dozen fruit.

Here's the rub, just about every pic I see online of the variegated guava type has leaf curl identical to mine, so I "assume" that this particular type has naturally convex curling leaves? Are there any others who have confirmed this issue?

I moved into Coral Springs south Florida some 18 years ago. My yard was barren save for a row of ficus bushes along my fence line which I removed. After removing them I planted several trees and my next door neighbor remarked how he hoped his mango seedling from a store bought fruit would bear soon.

Well it's been 18+ years and that tree has not produced a single fruit despite it being healthy albeit a bit overgrown but still rather small for its age at about 18 feet tall.

I read that some seedling fruit trees would never bear fruit but I never believed it till I came across this tree. Is this sterility thing a known issue with store bought mango seedlings?

Finally some relief in southeast Florida!

I don't know how much we had but my yard drank it all up .

After enjoying a batch of gnarly but DEElicious tomatoes recently I dug around in them for seeds and thought "what the heck, why not try growing them" and I planted the dozen or so seeds I was able to get from the seed stingy tomatoes I had. Gads, the 10 or so seeds I was able to get sprouted!

Now the questions...

Has anyone grown Heirlooms in south Florida?

If so, my yard is semi to mostly shaded with patches of full sun areas, which is best?

Container or in ground?

Planting / soil medium?

Any help would be appreciated.

 

Two Rollinia came ready for picking today.

I've been growing them long enough to know they do not ripen if picked green off the tree but today of two I picked one was yellow enough to pick but I found that the other side was STILL green.

I am bummed out thinking one of my long awaited fruits will not be edible. What are the chances this one can be salvaged? If so how to store it?

Should you wait until new growth hardens with bark? Or prune green shoots to encourage new branching?

We just ground a batch of carob and since we cant grow it here in Florida if anyone in the U.S can grow it my gf will send you the seeds.

My tree is about to collapse from the weight of the fruit and anyone in south Florida within reach of north Broward county is welcome to PM me and come take what you need.

No shipping, no way, no how sorry.

PM me

What are you folks who grow Rollinia seeing? Mine is doing well and as expected fruits are ranging from quarter size to the size of a hard baseball and more flowers erupting.

I have two large clay pots (one with a guava in it the other empty) that have moss and algae on them and I want to completely clean them without leaving any chlorine or chemicals behind on the pots that could cause injury to the plant.

Without having to find a way to pressure clean them, does anyone have any ideas?